Recap: Talawanda football falls on the road against conference rival Harrison, 20-7

The field is quiet. The stands are empty. Two hours remain before the Talawanda High School football team plays the Harrison High School Wildcats in what is slated to be a thrilling, high-stakes showdown.

Within the next 120 minutes, the bleachers fill. Players and coaches trickle out onto the turf, and the rivalry festivities begin. Players wearing red, blue and white line up on one end. On the other, they’re wearing green, black and white.

The two teams share similarities. They’re both in the Southwestern Ohio Conference. They’re both 6-1, and the only losses suffered were on the same weekend. Now, in their final conference matchup, the rivalry is as strong as ever, with no seat unfilled on this Friday night.

The Wildcats opened up play with a drive that ended in fourth and long. The team traveled a short way down the field, but were ruined by penalties. The Brave set up within their own 30-yard line with less than 10 minutes to play in the first quarter.

Talawanda sophomore quarterback Jake Van Gorden came out firing. He opened the drive with multiple short passes to move the chains. He took a sack, but a facemask penalty on the defense pushed the Brave offense past midfield. 

After a short run, Van Gorden decided to take a deep shot. The ball traveled 35 yards in the air and landed in the hands of senior wide receiver Camar Ellis in the left corner of the end zone for a touchdown. 

The extra point went through and Talawanda took an early 7-0 lead.

A failed Talawanda squib kick rolled out of bounds, giving Harrison advantageous starting field position at its own 35. However, a false start penalty pushed the Wildcats back to their own 30. 

Two strong run plays quickly moved the Wildcats offense to the 49, and on fourth-and-one, Harrison remained on the ground, getting a first down and running the ball on each of its first six plays. With two passes for no yards each, Harrison reached a fourth-and-six and decided to go for it again.

An incomplete pass rendered the drive unsuccessful for the home squad, and the Brave took over on its own 33. 

A short run play wound the clock down to zero with the Brave up 7-0 at the end of the first quarter.

A 14-yard run to start the quarter sent the visiting crowd wild as Talawanda neared enemy territory. Play paused as senior offensive lineman Zeke Klenk went down with an injury, but the stoppage didn’t slow the Brave’s momentum.

“Any time you lose a starter, it’s not a good thing,” Talawanda Head Coach Andy Stuckert said postgame. “Not just because, obviously, he’s a pretty good football player, but also, he took every rep at left tackle this week. But it’s football. It’s what happens. So it’s got to be the next guy up.”

On the next play, a strong run was called back by a penalty, but sophomore Aiden Zimmerman got revenge with a 20-yard catch-and-run.

With 10 minutes to go in the half, Talawanda marched into enemy territory, but on third-and-seven, a dropped pass on the right sideline and a delay of game penalty set up a punt. 

Harrison looked to put up its first points, starting its next drive on its own 27-yard-line.

The Wildcats didn’t give up on the run game, starting with four straight plays on the ground. Senior running back Wyatt Dennis capped the drive after breaking free for a 56-yard touchdown. 

The extra point was missed, giving Talawanda a slight 7-6 lead with less than eight minutes in the half. 

After a short catch by senior tight end Joey Beckett on second down and a pass broken up by a Wildcat safety, the Brave went three-and-out.

Harrison started on its own 44-yard line after a good return on the Talawanda punt. The Wildcats didn’t let up. Senior quarterback Brady Lawhon heaved a 56-yard touchdown to senior wide receiver Kyle Davidson. With the back-to-back touchdown drives and a successful two-point conversion, the Wildcats regained their stride and took a 14-7 lead.

Harrison’s defense kept the momentum and forced another three-and-out, but an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty allowed the Brave to keep possession, now at the 50. 

The Brave had four minutes to respond to Harrison’s big plays before the half. 

After a couple of short plays, the clock wound down, and Talawanda took a timeout with over a minute remaining on third-and-6. Stuckert spent another timeout after letting the clock run to 47 seconds on fourth-and-2.

Van Gorden kept the ball on a read-option play and pushed forward for a first down. Now in the hurry-up, a 6-yard run and a complete pass moved the offense to the 15-yard line. 

Stuckert took his last timeout with nine seconds left in the half. 

After a pass just over the head of Beckett toward the corner of the endzone, the Brave had four seconds left and lined up. They elected to try a 27-yard field goal. Senior kicker Brayden Kent ran onto the field to attempt the three point try, but he swung his foot through and sent the ball wide left.

Harrison kept a 14-7 lead to conclude the first half.

Immediately following the halftime break, football chaos erupted on the field.

The ball was kicked off by the Wildcats, and as soon as the Brave had it in their arms, sophomore Trey Fette blew him up and forced a fumble, giving Harrison first possession. 

Once the Wildcats offense took the ball, Lawhon fired a pass downfield to a receiver behind the defense. However, the pass was overthrown and sophomore defensive back J.B. Bechin jumped up to intercept the ball. 

As he fell to the ground, the ball came loose and out of his hands, but it didn’t leave his body. Instead, it bounced off his midsection and right to another Talawanda defender, senior free safety Kemper McAfee, who took the ball and ran with it for the interception. It was his team-leading third interception of the season.

After passing midfield, Talawanda encountered a fourth-and-3 after three straight runs. The Brave decided to keep the ball on the ground, but Hainline slipped and Harrison retained possession. 

The Wildcats opened with a strong run from Dennis to midfield, and then another gain on the ground to the Brave 27-yard line. An 18-yard run set up the Wildcats inside the 10-yard line, and after an incomplete pass, the home field goal unit jogged onto the field. 

Lawhon set up as the holder for the kick, and a fake field goal ensued. However, the Brave special teams defense prevented any trickery and denied the fourth down attempt, forcing a turnover on downs.

Talawanda, down 14-7, had a chance to take advantage of the Harrison mistake from their own 9-yard line. After three short run plays, the Brave gathered a first down and a 26-yard pass interference penalty moved the visitors way down the field. 

On third-and-4, Hainline caught a pass two yards short of the first down marker, and Talawanda moved into the fourth quarter staring at fourth and short. 

Evading the risk of a turnover, Beckett punted the ball inside Harrison’s own 15-yard line to begin the final frame.

The Wildcats offense began to suffocate the Talawanda defense and, more importantly, the clock.

Following six straight runs, including a pitch that gave Harrison a chunk play first down into Talawanda territory, Lawhon attempted to surprise the defense and heave a 40-yard pass. However, the Brave secondary was ready and broke up the play.

The Wildcats went straight back to the run, though. Lawhon took the ball on a read-option to Talawanda’s 32-yard line, and Dennis came just short of a first down on third-and-1. However, Lawhon kept the ball again on fourth down and pushed toward the Brave 19-yard line and another first down. 

Following the two-minute warning, Lawhon ran up the middle, hit a gap in the Talawanda line and found his way in the endzone for another Wildcats touchdown. 

A blocked extra point with 1:58 remaining gave Talawanda some energy, but in the end, a 10 and a half minute drive took away almost any hope the Brave had of completing the two scores necessary for a victory.

The touchdown run from Lawhon capped an 18-play and 85-yard drive that consisted of only one pass. 

Talawanda tried to find receivers down field, but an offensive pass interference penalty with 1:06 remaining put the Brave too far away. The final buzzer sounded, and Harrison emerged victorious, 20-7.

“I think we had our opportunities, and we didn’t take advantage of them, and a lot of that falls on me, squarely,” Stuckert said. “Offensively, we drove the ball up and down the field and didn’t score points, and in our losses that has been our M.O., so that falls on the offensive coordinator. That’s me, so I’ll take the blame for this one. And we’ll get that fixed though.”

Talawanda’s Van Gorden threw for 119 yards over 11 completions on 22 attempts, with his longest being the 35-yard reception to Ellis. And the Brave’s leader on the ground was sophomore running back Brody Abney, running for 77 yards on 14 carries. 

On the other end of the spectrum, the offense for the Wildcats centered around their running backs, Dennis and Fette. 

Dennis led the charge with 144 yards on 16 attempts with a touchdown, and Fette followed that with 96 yards on 13 attempts. Lawhon’s work in the air wasn’t as impressive as in weeks past, gathering 74 yards against the Brave, with a touchdown and an interception on five completions and 11 attempts. But his work on the ground was helpful when the Wildcats needed it most with 27 yards on six attempts and a touchdown. 

The Brave didn’t have much of a chance to score in the final quarter, but they had opportunities earlier in the game to gather yardage and move down the field. The Wildcats finished the game with five penalties for 65-yards compared to Talawanda’s three for 30, but possession time still heavily favored the home squad: 33:35 - 12:59. 

“It just comes down to we’ve got to finish drives,” senior offensive lineman Jordan Ellis said. “We’ve got to stay resilient, and we’ve got to finish big drives when we need them. We had a chance to score before half, we missed the field goal, but we still had a chance to come out in the second half and punch them in the mouth, which we didn’t capitalize on.”

The Brave moved to 6-2 on the season with the loss and will face Mount Healthy High School on the road in their final conference matchup of the year next week.